1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to data storage and more particularly relates to managing physical regions in a solid-state storage device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Solid-state storage, such as NAND flash memory, typically “wears out” after a certain number of program/erase cycles on the storage. As the number of program/erase cycles nears the threshold level for the storage, the data written or retrieved from the storage may contain errors. However, depending on the type of solid-state storage, the number of program/erase cycles required to wear out the storage may range from 1,000 to 1,000,000 cycles. Furthermore, solid-state storage devices often use one or more “wear-leveling” techniques that may or may not include writing data to the solid-state storage device in such a manner as to prolong the life of the solid-state storage media by writing data evenly across the storage media, or writing data to various locations across the storage to distribute the wear on the storage media.
Consequently, while this lifespan is appealing to a typical end-user who desires to obtain as much use from a solid-state storage device as possible, the great number of program/erase cycles and effects of a solid-state storage device's wear leveling techniques makes testing to verify manufacturers advertised lifespan assertions difficult to test as such tests may take months or years of continuous data writing to complete.